What is Linux operating system?

Question

What is Linux operating system?

Answer 1

Its an open source Operating System. Meaning the code is open for anyone who wants to work on it or see it. This allows for people from all over the world to work at making it better. It is free, and everyone who works on it does it becase the like it, not for money. And in most respects it is more current and up to date than any windows OS.

Example: A virus or trojan is discovered, people from all over the world have the source code and can figure out a problem together, usually in a matter of minutes or hours.

With Microsoft, no one is allowed to work on it except microsoft employees, and it takes them far far longer to do anything because there is less of them, and they have to get authorization to put out anything official.

If you are looking to start using Linux try this one: http://www.ubuntu.com

Answer 2

WHAT IS LINUX ?

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

"The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in the 1960s and first released in 1970. Its wide availability and portability meant that it was widely adopted, copied and modified by academic institutions and businesses, with its design being influential on authors of other systems.

The GNU Project, started in 1984, had the goal of creating a "complete Unix-compatible software system" made entirely of free software. In 1985, Richard Stallman created the Free Software Foundation and developed the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). Many of the programs required in an OS (such as libraries, compilers, text editors, a Unix shell, and a windowing system) were completed by the early 1990s, although low level elements such as device drivers, daemons, and the kernel were stalled and incomplete.Linus Torvalds has said that if the GNU kernel had been available at the time (1991), he would not have decided to write his own."

LUg.

Answer 3

Linux is the name usually given to any Unix-like computer operating system that uses the Linux kernel. Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free software and open source development: typically all underlying source code can be freely modified, used, and redistributed by anyone.

The name "Linux" comes from the Linux kernel, originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The system's utilities and libraries usually come from the GNU operating system, announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. The GNU contribution is the basis for the alternative name GNU/Linux.

Predominantly known for its use in servers, Linux is supported by corporations such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell, Oracle Corporation, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems. It is used as an operating system for a wide variety of computer hardware, including desktop computers, supercomputers, video game systems, such as the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, several arcade games, and embedded devices such as mobile phones, routers, and stage lighting systems.

One popular form of Linux is Ubuntu because of its Mac like features with Windows potential and more. Its more great for people that are really into computers and know how to adapt to new interfaces and ways of doing things manually. Its easy to use but not exacly user friendly for some.

Answer 4

Linux is in a broad sense, like Windows or Mac.  However, it is free, and open-source.  There are lots of distributions (distros) which differ from each other, but still run under Linux

Answer 5

Think of it this way: Linux is a collection of packages which allow a moderately sophisticated user to create their own customized operating system based on the Unix Development environment.

Since the 1970's UNIX has evolved a stable development environment which has allowed for considerable experimentation in such things as user interfaces.  In 1983, a man named Richard Stallman with backing from several computer millionaires, decided that running UNIX was getting too expensive and worse restrictive with all the EULAs which were coming into play for the first time.  He created the GNU tools as a free as in freedom alternative, which would allow you to do -- legally -- what most IT departments were doing anyhow and had been up until that point doing with the support of their UNIX vendors, something starting to change.  The intention was to create an entire free operating system, and eventually the tools became very widespread in small engineering shops which used UNIX, however they had a lot of trouble with the kernel that ran their OS.  In 1991 Linus Torvalds created a cheap, reliable kernel to run this UNIX development environment, which he called Linux.  It relied on the GNU tools.  A lot of the development which had been happening in UNIX  switched to Linux as an economical way to do it.

X-Windows, in particular, was developed in the eighties as a cross-platform graphic user interface, and while some of the more modern desktops like gnome and kde were developed to run it on Linux it runs essentially unchanged on Solaris, Citrix, FreeBSD and Irix.  Watch any footage containing a computer at a large university or NASA from the late eighties or early nineties and and you will most likely see an X-Windows desktop (like twm).

Mark Shuttleworth was a business graduate student when he was introduced to Linux, and as a smart, hard-working man was able to both teach himself to use it to run an Internet Security firm (which he later sold to Verisign for enough money to, once invested, make himself a billionaire) and to become a developer -- programmer -- for the debian distribution in his spare time.   After he made his money, he was looking for a way to give back, as a South African was VERY aware of how computing power was expanding DOWNWARD through the economic classes, and chose, among other things, to provide the less affluent with the same desktop environment -- which had made his fortune  -- because it was stable.  To make it usable for people who don't want to know about computers took work, but I'm describing Ubuntu, which even though I dislike using I respect immensely and as a user of other distros I feel validated by.  The differences are very minor and this is the first "Linux for the Masses" which tries to give an authentic UNIX/GNU Linux experience  rather than clone Windows.

Really, "Linux" or GNU/Linux can best be seen as a collection of small packages from independent vendors which together can be assembled into an Operating System.  In other words it is a straight-forward Do It Yourself Operating System kit which has been rolled into a variety of distros, from the User-friendly Ubuntu, to the tech oriented Slackware and Gentoo, to Hikarunix which is for Go Players to several which are available only for enterprises.  Including I believe two which have been certified by the US Government's National Security Agency as the most secure out there.